Fired For Being Gay

Sue Kirchofer got a preview of what was to come when she tried to change the beneficiary on her life insurance policy at work from her mother to her partner in early 1994. She was told that wasn't an option.

Kirchofer had worked at the industrial packaging and supply company in Seattle for nearly three years by then but was just beginning to come out about her sexuality. "They basically told me to remain invisible," she says.

Kirchofer duly kept mum about her sexual orientation at work. But a few months later, word got out that Kirchofer, a skilled soccer player, would be playing in the Gay Games in New York, an international competition that attracted more than 11,000 athletes from around the world. When she returned to work the week after the games, she was told she no longer had a job.

Kirchofer had always received good marks on her job performance reviews, and had even been promoted. "I offered to take another job within the company at a lower salary, since [the owner] said the money he was paying me was causing the company to take a loss," she recalls, though she says she knew what he said wasn't true. The owner's response, according to Kirchofer: "We don't want you in any capacity at this company."

Kirchofer was terminated, effective immediately-without severance or warning. "I was blindsided," she says. "Even as I relay it now, it is still a devastating thing to recount. To fire someone based only on sexual orientation, not job performance, is a horrific thing to have happen."

It may be horrific, but it's not illegal in all but a dozen U.S. states.